And it paid off early in the first period. Milan Michalek would open the scoring as he was “Johnny on the Spot” when Martin Brodeur kicked the puck off his defenceman and right on his stick. It was Michalek’s league-leading 18th goal of the season and gave the Sens the 1-0 lead. The goal would be followed by another unfortunate incident involving Chris Neil and the blade end of a stick. Petr Sykora high-sticked Neil in the face during an offensive rush, cutting him along the bridge of the nose and causing him to bleed profusely. Neil would leave to get stitched up, but return before the end of the period. (Sykora got 4 minutes, but the PP was killed off by the Devils) But before the period was over, Nick Foligno would grab the rebound off a Jared Cowen shot and backhand it by Brodeur to give the Sens a 2-0 lead heading into the second.

The second frame began with Martin Brodeur being pulled in favour of Johan Hedberg, but the Sens just kept coming. On a 5 on 3 power-play, Daniel Alfredsson wired one from the point that Hedberg had no chance on and it was 3-0 Senators. The Devils were able to close the gap while shorthanded however, when Zach Parise’s shot from a bad angle snuck by Alex Auld to cut the lead to 2.

Onto the third, where the Devils penalty kill continued its offensive display. Patrik Elias sent Dainius Zubrus in all alone on Alex Auld, beating the Senators goaltender and making it a 1 goal game. Then, Mattias Tedenby scored his first goal of the season when he drove to the net and knocked the puck by Auld to tie the game at 3. The Devils would complete the comeback just 37 seconds later when Ilya Kovalchuk converted a nice tic-tac-toe play from Parise & Henrique and all of a sudden, the Devils were up 4-3. But the Senators didn’t give up and with 5 seconds left in the game WHILE SHORTHANDED, Jesse Winchester tucked home a rebound by Johan Hedberg and this game was going to overtime!

Overtime solved nothing, so it was on to the shootout. The teams were tied at 2 scores a piece when Adam Henrique came down and deked Alex Auld right out of his jockstrap, finishing with the backhand. Hedberg would then squeeze the pads on David Rundblad’s attempt to go through his legs and the Devils would come out with the 5-4 win.

An up and down game for the Senators. While the team blew a 3-0 lead, giving up 2 shorthanded goals in the process, they didn’t quit and scored with 5 seconds left in the game while shorthanded to at least come out with one point on the road. Sergei Gonchar left the game after the second period with an upper body injury and did not return. Nick Foligno extended his point streak to 6 games, while captain Daniel Alfredsson now has 7 points in his last 6 games.